The reign of the Emperor Nicholas has been distinguished by the
important discovery, that portions of the great _eastern_ regions of
Siberia are highly auriferous; viz., the government of Tomsk and
Teniseik, where low ridges, similarly constructed to those on the
eastern flank of the Ural, and like them, trending from north to south,
appear as offsets from the great east and west chain of the Altai, which
separates Siberia from China. And here, it is curious to remark, that a
very few years ago, this distant region did not afford a third part of
the gold which the Ural produced; but by recent researches, an
augmentation so rapid and extraordinary has taken place, that in 1843
the eastern Siberian tract yielded considerably upwards of
two-and-a-quarter millions sterling, raising the total gold produce of
the Russian empire to nearly _three millions sterling_!--_Sir R. I.
Murchison_.
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